December 29, 2013
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Meditation
Rev. Joyce MacKichan Walker
When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.
I bet you expected to hear Luke 2 and Matthew 2. The tired couple after a long, dusty journey. The straw filled manger turned receiving blanket by bands of cloth – (hold one up) – did you get one from the manger at the end of the family service on Christmas Eve? The Gloria angels. The shepherds who couldn’t believe their eyes and ears. And a little late to the party – the star, the magi, the seemingly extravagant, exorbitant gifts. I bet some of you even came on purpose to hear those stories.
But I bet you didn’t expect Paul and “Death has been swallowed up in victory. ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” That’s for the other time we worry about how many seats we might have lost in the renovation to allow for more leg room, and lots of children up front, and a more welcoming entryway. “Where O death is your victory?” is for the only other time in the year we wonder whether we need to make an announcement that, in our heads is “Come on folks! Of all times this is the last one to be ‘big personal space’ Presbyterians!” Or, “You need the end of the pew why? … Dave might say something controversial and you might need to make a break for it? Your cell phone might go off and it might be – a facebook post you have to “Like” right away?” “Death has been swallowed up in victory” is for the only other time we, thankfully, don’t say what’s in our heads. Instead we discretely encourage you to cuddle up a little and slide to the middle because it’s going to be a packed house, and because we are indeed that welcoming congregation that wants you to be here – that makes room for every single one.
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” That’s the Easter story. That’s the “forgiveness of sin” good news. That’s the, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” proclamation that always ends in the litany response this congregation has embraced, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!”
Christmas is the time we Christians boldly claim that God came to us in Jesus. The birth of Jesus is the moment all creation had been waiting for. God broke into this world, announced peace and good will, turned it upside down, and began the long process of making all things new – building the new creation, the kingdom, God’s kingdom, here on earth. The moment God came to us in Jesus, God enlisted all of us as partners.
One of the new small groups formed in the fall studied Surprised by Hope, a book by NT Wright, former Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, and currently a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Wright says it this way:
“What we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom…. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. [Wright says] You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are – strange though it may seem … – accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world.”[1]
Wright has some examples to help us too:
Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of God’s creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-let teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God.[2]
Some of us have a hard time imagining that what we do matters in the long run. Matters to God. Matters to God’s kingdom. Paul didn’t. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”
Christ the Saviour is born. Friends – what part will you play in building for the kingdom of God in the new year?
[1] Surprised by Hope, NT Wright, HarperCollins, 2008, page 208.
[2] Ibid, page 208.
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